


These Prompts Just Went Critical

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Because Of Course Any Tea Made From Molly Would Get You High, Being taken care of, Blood Loss, But I'm Not Giving Up Caduceus Either, Cliff Diving With Friends, Dreams, Fever, First Kiss, Fluff, Hearing The Divine, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Listen I Miss Molly Okay?, Molly's Alive In These Because I Say So, Most Of These Are Short And Sweet, Non-explicit major character death, Other, Resurrection, Reunion, Romantic Walks Along The Beach, Self-Loathing, Sometimes People Live To Spite Themselves, Technically (Technically) Kidnapping But Those Orphans Deserve Better Caretakers, mild drug use, prompt fills, resurrection fic, walks in the snow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-09-07 13:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 9,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16854658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Fills for prompts on @criticalprompts, or prompts I fill in general if I ever open up my inbox for that one of these days. So far all of these are short and sweet.





	1. Better Than Being Between A Rock And A Hard Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beau finds herself at the edge of a cliff and has to make a choice...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for @criticalprompts: Backed up to the edge of the cliff, Beau knew her only option was to jump. She glanced over her shoulder at the rough sea below and the jagged rocks surrounded by foam. This was a terrible idea.
> 
> Character: Beau

Backed up to the edge of the cliff, Beau knew her only option was to jump.  She glanced over her shoulder at the rough sea below and the jagged rocks surrounded by foam.  This was a terrible idea.

“They’re getting closer,” Yasha said softly from her left, one hand on her sword, the other hand pressed to a bloody gash in her side.

“Unless you’ve suddenly developed the ability to fly, I’m out of good ideas.”

“Then do the bad idea!” Molly’s grin was as sharp as the edges of the broken sword he still held in one hand. The blood running down the back of his neck and the side of his face was the least of his wounds. “After all, you only live once!”

_Says the person who’s crawled out of his grave twice now,_ Beau thought but did not say. Molly’s smile was wide, but his eyes were filled with fear and uncertainty, same as hers. “Fuck it,” she said out loud, and turned, taking a deep breath as she held out her hands and felt each of them taken. “On the count of three.”

“One.” Soft and sure.

“Two.” Said with a chuckle to hide the tremor in the word.

Beau took a deep breath and looked at the angel on one side of her, the demon on the other. Being between them was much better than being between a rock and a hard place.

“Three.”


	2. Special Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A simple walk on the beach leads to something a little more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for @criticalprompts
> 
> The shores of Port Damali had always been a special place to Fjord. It was the smell of the sea and the warm breeze that blew in off the water. But it was extra special now.
> 
> Characters: Fjord and Jester

The shores of Port Damali had always been a special place to Fjord.  It was the smell of the sea and the warm breeze that blew in off the water.  But it was extra special now, because Jester was walking next to him, her fingers brushing against his every now and again.

“So this was your favorite place when you were growing up?”

Fjord nodded. “I used to sneak out of the orphanage and come down here. It was quiet. Peaceful. I’d watch the ships leaving port and wish I was leaving too. Thought about stowing away, once or twice.”

“I used to watch the ships from my bedroom window,” Jester replied. “I’d see them coming into port and I’d wonder if maybe my dad was on one of them, that maybe he was coming back to see my momma, and, well, me I guess. And sometimes I would imagine that one day I would become a famous pirate and find him, or something.” She laughed, and it was a quieter laugh than her usual one. “Instead I found him maybe and _then_ kind of became a pirate, which was fun in bits, but not as much fun as I thought it’d be.”

The next time Jester’s fingers brushed his, Fjord entwined them with his own and gave them a comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry for dragging you into that. Not just you. Everyone. I didn’t mean for things to go so far.”

“I know,” Jester said softly. “It wasn’t all bad though. You got to learn where your powers come from, and I learned how to do tattoos and stuff, and the actual sailing was nice. Remember that night with the jellyfish?”

“Of course I do.” Fjord remembered the jellyfish, but mostly he remembered the look of awe on Jester’s face when she had been gazing at them, and the way the moonlight had shone on her skin, like it was shining on her now. He waited for her to say something, or to laugh, or to lean over and kiss him. Instead they just walked in silence, fingers still entwined, and that was simple. For now, that was enough.

“Did you have any other favorite places?” Jester asked suddenly, startling Fjord out of his thoughts. He had to think about her question for a long moment before replying.

“I used to lay on the roof of the orphanage and look at the stars,” Fjord finally said. “The orphanage itself was a terrible place, but the view was nice.” Fjord shook his head. “Gods, that sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not stupid!” Jester said, and there was a grin on her face and a mischievous look in her eyes. “We should go there! We could climb up on the roof and look at the stars! I mean—“ her expression suddenly turned serious as she looked at him. “I was thinking that maybe we could make a nice memory of the place instead of a bad one. That’s all.”

Fjord knew that he could say no, and Jester would be okay with that, and they’d continue to walk along the beach, hand in hand, until they went back to the inn. That would be a safe course of action, predictable, and after their journey at sea maybe a little bit of predictability would be welcome. He was a man of calculated risks, and Jester….

Fjord looked at Jester, at the woman who was chaos and comfort and caring from her horns all the way to her tail, and suddenly found there was nothing more that he wanted to do than to climb onto a roof and look at the stars with her.

“Okay, yeah sure,” Fjord said, and watched Jester’s face light up. The worst that could happen was they’d get caught trespassing and have to pay a fine or something, right?

Hours later, as Fjord and Jester walked quickly through the streets of Port Damali, orphans riding their shoulders and held in their arms, the children wide eyed and woefully underfed, Fjord realized that nothing with Jester involved was ever that simple.


	3. Summer Walking Through Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caduceus goes for a walk and finds someone he knows but never expected to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For @criticalprompts: Write a fic that represents the different feel of these two things: summer sun and winter moon.
> 
> Character: Caduceus

_Caduceus._

The Wildmother’s voice is warm, bringing the smell of blackberries in the sun, of flowers and grave moss and home with it. Caduceus opens his eyes, blinking sleepily in the dim light of Caleb’s protective magic. Everyone else is still asleep, breathing quiet and even.

_Come outside_.

Caduceus rises, obeying without question. His feet move softly through the newly fallen snow, which reflects the light of Exandria’s moons well enough to see by, not that there’s anything to see but snow and trees. The air is cold, and for Caduceus winter is still a novelty. The Blooming Grove had never seen snow, and the air had always been warm regardless of the weather in the woods surrounding it, smelling of flowers and earth. Cold has a smell to it too, Caduceus realizes as he walks, something sharp. Or maybe it’s just the _lack_ of things to smell that he’s smelling, but then how can the _lack_ of smells in itself be smelt?

The sound of someone moving through the trees breaks Caduceus out of the paradox he’s thought himself into and he pauses, holding very still, ears twitching as his breath steams in the chilly air. There’s still the sharp smell of cold, but there’s something else now as well underneath that, the smell of dirt and the grave, comforting smells when you’re in a graveyard, not so much when you’re alone in the woods in the middle of the night and the smell is getting closer.

Caduceus feels his heart start to beat faster as he says a word and looks around, searching for the sickly yellow glow that any nearby undead would give off. He sees nothing but trees and snow and moonlight and shadows. He says another word, but no other lights appear, the baleful green of aberrations or the flickering red of fiends.

_Wait_.

Caduceus waits, trusting in his god, trusting that she wouldn’t put him in danger, or at least, not any danger he couldn’t get himself out of. There’s still no glow, just silver light and shadows, and then one shadow separates itself from the rest and steps into the moonlight.

Caduceus has never seen the tiefling known as Mollymauk Tealeaf, but he’s listened to all the things his friends have said about him, and all the things they didn’t say as well. He sees the golden jewelry dangling from his horns and remembers Jester staring at golden chains while they had been shopping in Zadash, her smile tinged with sorrow. He had last seen the bright coat hanging over a freshly dug grave, but it looks more at home around the tiefling’s shivering form. The stranger smells of the grave, but there are flowers in his hair, snowdrops and hellebores, and Caduceus remembers the feel of dirt under his fingers, his magic flowing into the ground, making the earth remember who was buried there.

“Hello?” The tiefling says through chattering teeth. “Are you lost too?”

“I don’t think I am,” Caduceus says. “I think I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” He moves closer to the tiefling, and now he can see the jagged scar that marks the man’s chest, the tattoos that decorate his skin. He puts out a hand and pretends he doesn’t notice the tiefling flinch and reach for a sword hanging at his side for just an instant before smiling and taking Caduceus’s hand. “What’s your name, friend?”

“I—“ The tiefling takes a note from his pocket, the paper deeply creased as if it had been unfolded and refolded dozens of times. “I think it’s here, in this note. I tried to read it. I keep trying to read it. I can see the words and I know they should mean something, they used to mean something. But the moon—“ The tiefling looks up into the moonlight for a moment, his frustration from a moment ago melting away into a smile. “The moon told me my name was Molly, and that if I found someone that smelled of summer that they could help me. And you smell like the sun, and green grass and flowers. I remember those things.”

Caduceus smiles gently. “I think you’ll remember more than that, given time. My name’s Caduceus, Caduceus Clay, and _your_ name is Mollymauk Tealeaf. Your friends have missed you very much.”

“Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Molly says, saying the words like he’s saying them for the first time. “Molly. Molly to my friends. My—“ His red eyes go wide, and he makes a sound like he’s just been struck in the chest. “My friends! How could I have— Caleb—Jester—Beau—Fjord—Nott—Yasha! Oh gods, Yasha! Do you know them? Are they all right? Are they alive? There was—“

“A lot has happened,” Caduceus says, and that’s an understatement. “Everyone is alive and as fine as they can be. Let’s get you back with your friends, and get you warm.”

“Warm,” Molly says wistfully as they walk back towards camp. “I remember being warm.”

“I’ll make you some tea,” Caduceus says, and looks at Molly again, checking again for any indication that the person walking beside him is a revenant or a fiend, but the only glow he sees is moonlight against purple skin.

_Look after him_ , two voices say at once, one as warm as summer sunlight, one bright and crystalline as moonlight on snow, and Caduceus nods and puts an arm around Molly, who leans toward him like a plant leaning towards the sun.


	4. The Colors I Remember Most

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Caleb and Molly remember the colors associated with those closest to them. Direct sequel to Summer Walking Through Winter, the previous chapter of this work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for criticalprompts: Different shades of purple: lilac, lavender, periwinkle, plum. That was what he remembered.
> 
> Characters: Mollymauk and Caleb

Caleb can be a very deep sleeper, depression and anxiety are both very exhausting after all, but he hasn't had a decent night's sleep since that night three of his friends had been kidnapped, not to mention everything that had happened since then. So he's awake when Caduceus exits the bubble of magic and walks past the silver thread of his alarm spell. He thinks nothing of it at first. A call of nature most likely. It's when five minutes stretches to ten that Caleb starts to worry. He's loathe to wake anyone up though. It's possible the firbolg got distracted by something on the way back to camp, or stopped to have a discussion with an interesting tree, something innocuous.

In the end he sends Frumpkin to follow Caduceus tracks through the fallen snow. In feline form Frumpkin's eyes aren't as keen, but still serviceable, and Caleb can smell freshly turned earth and the lingering scent of decay through Frumpkin's nose, underneath the smell of snow. Then Frumpkin smells something else, something familiar that causes the cat to trill in both confusion and delight, but Caleb is already up on his feet and running, not caring that the magic of the protective dome will fail when he leaves it, not caring about anything but running in the direction that Frumpkin has gone. The smell of incense and lavender and old blood is in his nose and he thought he would never smell that particular combination again except in his most vivid dreams.

The ability to see in the dark given to him by his transmuter’s stone only allows him to see in black and white, but that doesn’t matter. When Caleb rounds a copse of trees and sees Caduceus and Molly standing there, his memory immediately fills in the colors he should be seeing. The deep purple of Molly’s hair, like plums in sunlight, the lavender of his skin, which would be nearly periwinkle in the silver light of the full moon, criss-crossed with lilac scars. Molly’s lips form Caleb’s name in tones of confusion and wonder and joy and Caleb, for as good as his memory is, doesn’t remember closing those last few steps between himself and Molly. One moment they are feet away from each other, the next Caleb is in Molly’s arms, surrounded by several shades of purple, all of them nearly too good to be true, and he never wants to move again.

************

Molly’s hand moves to his sword when he hears a strange sound in the darkness, but the firbolg next to him only smiles.

“It’s all right,” Caduceus says. “It’s Frumpkin. Do you remember Frumpkin?”

_Orange,_ Molly thinks. He had come out of the grave with flowers growing in his hair and the memory that he had friends, but no memories of their names. Instead he had colors in his head, a rainbow of them. The name fits with the color. Frumpkin. Orange.

The furry animal that comes racing through the snow to twist around Molly’s feet and chatter and purr is black and white in the dim light, but the memory in Molly’s head now is of an orange cat, black spotted and striped. He leans down and pets Frumpkin, who eagerly pushes his furry little head into Molly’s hand.

Orange makes him think of red, red like fire and like sunsets, and sunsets make him think of the sky, how blue it is when the sun is shining. That means something. Molly scratches Frumpkin between the ears and thinks through the names of his friends that he had only remembered moments ago, and the colors. Blue. Jester is blue like the sky just before night falls, and Beau wears cobalt, and those are the wrong shades for the blue he’s thinking of. Fire. Fire and the sky.

The sound of someone running makes Molly stand up straight, and when he sees a human man standing in the moonlight, staring at him, he puts a name to the face and the colors he’s not seeing. Caleb, who has hair the color of a campfire and eyes like the sky in summer.

“Caleb,” the name falls out of his mouth in disbelief and joy and suddenly he has his arms full of wizard. Caleb’s head is buried in the crook of his neck and the man is whispering his name like it’s the only word he knows.

“I’m here, Caleb.” Molly places a kiss to the top of Caleb’s head, breathes in the familiar campfire scent of his hair. It’s not enough, he’s too full of emotions and colors swirling in him like a storm. He pulls back a fraction, cups Caleb’s face with one hand. _Hells,_ Molly thinks as he presses his lips to Caleb’s, _you only live thrice._

In a moment the rest of his friends will come running, and Caduceus will light up his staff as everyone crowds around Molly, and the tiefling will be hugged by a laughing, crying rainbow of people, _his_ people, his family. But for right now he holds Caleb close as he kisses and is kissed back in return, his hands tangled in the fire of Caleb’s hair, and for the first time since he’s crawled out of his own grave, he feels warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I know that wizards can only see and hear through their familiars, but I see no good reason why they couldn't smell things too, because magic.


	5. A Tree Grown From A Planted Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The grass is still green around Molly’s grave, in contrast to the dry brown that marks the rest of the landscape, and there are snapdragons and lavender in bloom around the grave marker, the coat seemingly untouched and moving faintly in the breeze. None of those things surprise Caduceus. It’s the tree that draws his attention, a tall maple that Caduceus would guess was a hundred seasons old or more, and that hadn’t been there when he had last seen the grave. The leaves are still thick on the branches even as more blanket the ground, leaves a fire of oranges and reds and purples along with an impossible blue like the sky in summer, or like the skin of the goddess of moonlight and autumn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for prompt number 21, which was an image of leaves in various colors, including a beautiful blue. Characters were listed as Beau or Caduceus. I have one in mind for Beau as well, something completely different.

_Caduceus doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he knows a dream when he’s in one, the edges of things gone soft and indistinct. He’s walking by himself down a well worn road, and he knows it’s late autumn by the bite of frost in the air and the way the leaves, once a riot of color on the trees, have fallen into drifts underneath bare branches. Still, there’s a bit of color up on the road ahead, and Caduceus walks toward it in good spirits._

_The grass is still green around Molly’s grave, in contrast to the dry brown that marks the rest of the landscape, and there are snapdragons and lavender in bloom around the grave marker, the coat seemingly untouched and moving faintly in the breeze. None of those things surprise Caduceus. It’s the tree that draws his attention, a tall maple that Caduceus would guess was a hundred seasons old or more, and that hadn’t been there when he had last seen the grave. The leaves are still thick on the branches even as more blanket the ground, leaves a fire of oranges and reds and purples along with an impossible blue like the sky in summer, or like the skin of the goddessof moonlight and autumn._

_The leaves make no sound as he walks on them, as soft under his feet as if they had freshly fallen. The bark of the tree under his hand is warm when he touches it, and delightfully rough. He stands for a moment and just lets himself experience it, the smell of autumn in his nose and the feeling of the ground beneath him._

_Caduceus is not surprised when the bark shifts beneath his hand, when the tree splits open to reveal a tiefling with skin the color of lavender flowers, clothed only in tattoos and scars. He only takes a step back as the tiefling’s eyes open, crimson as heart’s blood, as he steps from the tree with legs as shaky as a newborn foal’s. There are maple seeds tangled in his hair._

_“What—?” The word comes out in the language of the fae, and it sounds like wind in the branches, like leaves rustling._

_“The earth remembered you, Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Caduceus says softly. “She remembered you very well.”_

Caduceus wakes when the cart stops and he sits up with a yawn and a stretch, blinking in the light of the afternoon sun. When he sees that everyone is looking, not at the road ahead, but at something off to the side of it, he turns his attention that way as well.

The tree reaches up into the sky, the leaves as bright and as colorful as the person whose grave it marks.

Caduceus hears two voices, one of springtime and sun and one of autumn and moonlight, and they both say the same thing.

_A gift_.

“Let’s go,” Caduceus says with a smile as he reaches for his staff and stands up. “He’s waiting.”


	6. Drinking Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It should have been weird, drinking Molly tea, especially since Molly was sitting right there next to her, alive and breathing and braiding Yasha’s hair as he leaned against Caduceus for support. Honestly though, after seeing Molly walk out of an impossible tree after being a year dead, drinking the tea made from the plants that had grown from his grave had been the least weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't *going* to be a direct sequel to the last prompt fill, but once I started thinking about it in this direction I couldn't stop. Enjoy!

It should have been weird, drinking Molly tea, especially since Molly was sitting right there next to her, alive and breathing and braiding Yasha’s hair as he leaned against Caduceus for support. Honestly though, after seeing Molly walk out of an impossible tree after being a year dead, drinking the tea made from the plants that had grown from his grave had been the least weird. There had been a lot of crying and cheerful yelling and questions about how and why. Caleb had said something about dryads and Jester had started talking about wood-wives and Caduceus had declared that everyone was getting over-excited and they all needed to relax.

Beau leans against Caduceus’s side and stares at the leaves they’ re sitting on. They’re blue, some of them, impossibly blue, not quite the color of Jester’s skin, but close. She touches one, and is surprised when the color doesn’t come off on her hands.

Jester herself is sprawled on her stomach, her sketchbook open in front of her. She started drawing something at some point, but now she’s stroking the page as if it was Frumpkin. Beau watches her take another sip of tea and roll it around in her mouth for a moment before swallowing.

“Molly tastes minty, like family,” Jester declares, her tail waving lazy figure eights in the air. “And purple.”

“I don’t think that purple has a flavor, Jess,” Fjord says, his drawl as slow and lazy as honey dripping from a beehive. He’s laying on his back, staring up at the leafy canopy of the tree above him. The way that the sunlight filters through the branches and cast patterns on his skin reminds Beau of their time underwater.

“It does! It’s all smooth, and in the back of the throat. It’s not like red. Red’s all sharp and closer to your teeth,” Jester says as if any of that makes any sort of sense.

Yasha says something that Beau doesn’t understand, the language sounding like the song that crystal birds would sing. Molly chuckles softly and says something back to her in that same language. It’s different than what Molly had been speaking earlier, when he had first stepped out of the tree, words that had sounded like water dripping off leaves, like wind rattling branches. Caduceus had answered him in that same language, with words like water trickling over rocks. It had surprised her when Caleb had spoken it as well, though the way he had spoken the language had made Beau think of the hiss and roar of a forest fire.

On the other side of Caduceus, Caleb’s braiding Nott’s hair into the tiniest of braids while Frumpkin drapes himself around his neck and purrs so hard that Beau swears she can feel the vibration of it against her skin even though she is several feet away. It is a furry sort of sound, the kind of sound that surrounds you like a warm quilt. No wonder Caleb prefers Frumpkin as a cat.

Everything is peaceful and calm, the perfect sort of contentment that Beau had only heard about from the monks skilled in meditation. It was like a waking dream….

“This can’t be real.”

The words fall out of Beau’s mouth like rocks, shattering the perfect peace, breaking it like her fists can break bone. She can hear her heart beating in her ears, the thud of it as heavy as a kick to the ribs.

“This can’t be real. It’s too good, it’s too perfect. This… this doesn’t happen. This can’t be happening.”

Beau feels anxiety and dread humming under her skin. She wants to run. She wants to wake up, because this has to be a dream, this can’t be real. Any second she’s going to wake up and Molly will be gone and it will hurt, gods it will hurt, but it’ll be real, because this _can’t_ be, it can’t be even as badly as she wants it—

Molly’s hands don’t leave Yasha’s hair, but his tail wraps around Beau’s wrist when she goes to get up and pulls her back down. It’s sudden, unexpected, and the weight of it is warm and solid against her wrist, nearly as heavy as Caduceus’s arm across her shoulders.

“I’m here,” Molly says. “I can’t believe it either. I keep waiting for everything to go dark, like before, or for everything to become very bright, like it did after. I don’t know how it happened, or what I am, or what happens next.” He shakes his head, and a few maple seeds fall from his hair and slowly pinwheel to the ground. “All I know is that I’m here, and _you’re_ here, and everyone else is here. Whatever this is, however it happened, I’m going to enjoy it until it stops. Same as before.”

Beau opens her mouth to protest and Molly smirks and yanks on her wrist with his tail.

“Quit harshing my buzz, Beau, and just enjoy something for once in your gods damned life.”

That startles a laugh out of Beau, as sudden as a bird taking flight. “You’re such an ass,” she says as she relaxes into Caduceus’s side, feeling her eyes close as tension runs out of her like blood from a wound. “If you’re not here when I wake up, I’m going to find your ghost and punch it. I can do that now. Punch ghosts.”

“Oh I can’t wait to see that,” Molly says, and his chuckle follows her into sleep.


	7. Threads Of Destiny In The Eye Of The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yasha stood in the eye of a storm, reality shifting and twisting around her with a sound like thunder, with a feeling like wind blowing, with flashes as bright as lightning. Around her the others stood, all of them frozen. All of them except her. No. All of them except her and Caleb.
> 
> “Caleb! Don’t do this, please.” Yasha’s voice carried above the sound of reality bending, of the world ending.
> 
> Caleb turned to face her, his hands buried up to his wrists in the dodecahedron, his eyes filled with twinkling points of light, his hair streaming behind him like fire.
> 
> Caleb stared at her with eyes that held the infinite. “I’m remaking the world, Yasha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for @criticalprompts. Features non-explicit major character death. This is all hurt, folks.
> 
> Prompt #32: “You give me no choice.”
> 
> “I gave you every choice.”
> 
> Characters: Yasha and Caleb

Yasha stood in the eye of a storm, reality shifting and twisting around her with a sound like thunder, with a feeling like wind blowing, with flashes as bright as lightning. Around her the others stood, all of them frozen. All of them except her. No. All of them except her and Caleb.

“Caleb! Don’t do this, please.” Yasha’s voice carried above the sound of reality bending, of the world ending.

Caleb turned to face her, his hands buried up to his wrists in the dodecahedron, his eyes filled with twinkling points of light, his hair streaming behind him like fire.

Caleb stared at her with eyes that held the infinite. “I’m remaking the world, Yasha.”

Yasha shook her head. “You’re destroying it.”

“It has to be destroyed. It is the only way to reshape things, to make things right. Everything will be better. It has to be better. It—“ Caleb fell to his knees, blood trickling from his nose. “This is harder than I thought it’d be.”

Yasha took a step forward, drawing her sword as she did so. “Caleb, please. Just stop.”

Caleb shook his head. “I have to do this, Yasha. Killing Trent didn’t help. I wanted it to, I wanted it to be enough. I didn’t want to have to do this. But it’s the only thing left to do, now. To undo everything, remake it so I never killed my parents. So I never became _this_. I can fix so much, now that I understand how this works. I can make it so Molly never died, Yasha. I can make it so your wife never died. I can make everything so much _better_.”

Yasha felt tears streaming from her eyes, but she made no move to wipe them away. Instead she took another step forward, and then another. “It’s not going to work, Caleb. I’ve had visions, I’ve seen how this ends. You break the world, and it doesn’t come back together. The power you’re trying to wield is too much for mortals. You are no god, Caleb Widogast.”

“I can’t live with the world like this, Yasha.” Tears trailed down Caleb’s cheeks like comets streaking through the sky. “Do you understand?”

“I do. But you have to stop this Caleb, or I have to stop you.”

Caleb’s body began to glow with a soft light, the same gray light as the dodecahedron. “It is too late for me to stop now.”

Yasha raised her sword. “You give me no choice.”

Caleb looked up at her, and there was no malice in his face as he shook his head, only sorrow. “I gave you every choice.”

Yasha kept her eyes open as her sword swung down. She owed him that much.

Around her, the storm died.


	8. With Only Self-Loathing To Keep Me Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The house was long abandoned, windows broken, furniture moldering with exposure to the elements, cobwebs and dust covering the debris of what had once been a home. There was nothing left of value in the whole place, and that suited Caleb Widogast just fine. A broken place for a broken person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Critical Prompts, prompt #28, which was the image of an interior of a house very much in disrepair and had Caleb as the character prompt.

The house was long abandoned, windows broken, furniture moldering with exposure to the elements, cobwebs and dust covering the debris of what had once been a home. There was nothing left of value in the whole place, and that suited Caleb Widogast just fine. A broken place for a broken person.

Snow drifted in through the holes in the roof and Caleb shivered in his stolen coat. It had been warm enough to get him through early fall, when he had escaped the asylum he had spent so long in, time stolen from him, so much time. He had gone in there a young man, and had left as an older one. His reflection in broken mirrors and still ponds showed him a face he barely recognized. He had run south, away from the city, away from people, away away away, and now he was going to freeze to death in front of a fireplace filled with pieces of broken furniture because he had no tinder and flint, because every time he tried to call the fire to his hands he couldn’t breathe for the memory of smoke, couldn’t hear for the memory of screaming.

Caleb stared at his shaking hands, covered by bandages and by the thinnest and most threadbare of gloves, little protection from the cold. He tore off the gloves, throwing them in the fireplace. The bandages followed, and then he was staring at his hands, his traitorous, murderous hands.

“Do you want to die here?” Caleb growled. “Is that what you want? To just lie down and die? Do you think you _deserve_ to rest?”

Caleb felt his hands grow warm, the skin darkening, beginning to char.

“You have to at least _try_ to make things right,” Caleb hissed. “ _Earn_ your death.”

The barest flicker of flame started at his thumb, crept along the palm of his hand like the wick of a candle finally catching alight.

“Living is hard, and it only gets harder and it is suffering and it is pain and you deserve every single second of it. SO LIGHT THAT FIRE AND LIVE!”

Flame erupted from his hands, the kindling in the fireplace becoming an inferno in seconds before dying down to something manageable. Sustainable.

Caleb stared at the flames until his shaking subsided, then smiled a bitter smile as he fed more wood to the fire.


	9. What Fire Wants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For @criticalprompts prompt #70. They say fire is cleansing. It burns away all that is dirty or wrong. Caleb knows otherwise.

It was fire that would cleanse the Empire, Caleb had been told back when he hadn’t been Caleb. Fire would burn away all that was dirty, all that was wrong. Wrong people, wrong thoughts, wrong ideals, wrong species. All would burn in the cleansing flames.

It was a truth, Caleb supposed, but not a complete one. A twisted truth, like most things Trent had told him Fire burned things that others felt were dirty, felt were wrong. But it also burned things that were good, things that were right. It burnt down homes that had only known love and laughter within their walls. It burnt up people that had worked hard all their lives, people full of love and hope and trust. It tore through fields that had been planted in the spring, had been filled with the promise of food, of security. It burned…. It burned….

Caleb looked down at Nott, unconscious in his lap. The patches of skin that Caduceus’s magic had regrown were slightly paler than the surrounding flesh and shone oddly in the light of the magic bubble that was keeping them safe for the night. Caduceus said that he would work on her again in the morning, after he had gotten some rest.

Across from Caleb, Beau leaned against Yasha as Jester worked on her hands. There were blisters still on her face, but her hands and her arms had been burned almost nearly down to the bone. Caduceus had given her something for the pain, something that had Beau giggling like a child. She had been screaming before, as she had pulled Nott from the lava and held her to her chest. They had been on fire. They had both been on fire.

Caleb tried to take a breath, but all he could smell was the charred flesh of his friends. There was ash on his hands, on the bandages that covered his scars.

Fire was no pure thing. It left the ruined timbers of houses in its wake, the bones of people, the ash of lives once lived. Fire did not care about right. It did not care about wrong. It did not care what it destroyed. Fire was appetite. All it wanted was to be fed. All it wanted was to burn.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anon for the whump fic bingo prompt: molly, "head lolling as they no longer have the strength to hold it up."

“Molly?” Fjord’s voice sounded very far away. “Molly, c’mon, look at me.”

Molly lifted his head for a brief moment, forcing himself to focus on Fjord’s worried face before his head lolled back against the wall of the cave. “Ow,” he said reflexively, even though the impact had barely registered as pain. That was because the rest of his nerve endings were occupied with screaming at him about the fact that his right shoulder had recently been near half bitten off by—by—-

“What was that thing?” Molly asked as he tried to apply pressure to the wound. Blood slid between his fingers, a horrifyingly familiar sensation. “Rocks should not have that many tentacles. Or any tentacles, honestly. One tentacle is too much. The same goes for mouths.”

“They’re called ropers. We fought them before, a few months ago, while you were, you know… gone.”

Molly stared up at the roof of the tunnel overhead and sighed. “You can say dead, you know. I don’t mind. It’s what happened. I died. I was dead. Then I wasn’t dead. And now I’m here, and you’re here, and any second now our friends are going to finish killing the fucked up tentacle rocks and clear away this rockslide and I’ll have my choice of clerics to heal me up and then we’ll be on our way again.” If he listened very hard, he could hear Jester telling the roper to “suck it” in Infernal. He chuckled softly. Gods, he had missed her.

“I’m sorry,” Molly heard Fjord say.

Something in Fjord’s tone made Molly make the effort to lift his head again. “Are you seriously apologizing for saving my life? Because, okay, this situation isn’t ideal, but it’s a hell of a lot better than being gnawed on.”

Fjord wasn’t looking at Molly, he was staring at the jumble of rocks that was blocking their way out. “I shouldn’t have cast Thunder Step underground. I didn’t even think about the fact that it might bring part of the cavern down. I just wanted to get you away from that thing. I didn’t want you to…”

Fjord trailed off, but Molly was more than capable of filling in the rest of that sentence. “Fjord. Come sit by me.”

Fjord obliged, and Molly sighed with satisfaction as he rested his head on Fjord’s shoulder. “That’s better. Now, first thing’s first. I’m not dying. Being used as some monster’s chew toy sucks, but I can take it. Second, no more apologies. Not about saving me just now, or not being able to save me back then. Keep all that in the past where it belongs, all right?”

“Yeah,” Fjord said softly. “All right.”

It wasn’t the first time that Molly had reassured his friends that his death wasn’t their fault, and he knew it wasn’t going to be the last. Someday that pain would fade, at least, he hoped so. For now he just held his hand against his wound a little more tightly and enjoyed the comfort of Fjord’s shoulder to lean on.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for @mamzellecombeferre on Tumblr for the whump fic bingo prompt: Touching Their Head and Feeling Their Own Temperature Rise for Fjord!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written before everyone named their moorbounders, if anyone is wondering why they don't have their canon names here.

Fjord looks out at the scenery passing by them at what seems like an incredible speed as the moorbounder bounds across the wastes, true to its name, and tightens his grip around Jester’s waist, shivering as the wind of the plains cuts through his cloak. He’s never tolerated the cold very well, having spent most of his life down on the southern coast, where the temperature barely dipped below mild, even in the winter. He’s looking forward to stopping for the evening, to the heat of the campfire and his bedroll and maybe even a cup of tea to warm his insides.

“Fjord?” Jester’s voice is loud enough to be heard over the wind as turns her head slightly in his direction. The moorbounder veers left, sensitive to even the smallest movements of her body as she steers the big cat. She says something in what he’s sure is Infernal and faces forward again, her hands tightening on the reins connected to the creature’s harness. “Gumdrop, I’m trying to talk to Fjord, can you maybe not do that please?”

“What is it, Jester?” Fjord asks, trying to stop his teeth from chattering.

“Are you okay? You feel kind of hot against me, and I don’t mean in like an, ‘Oh Fjord, you’re super attractive’ kind of way. I’m not saying you’re not!” Jester says quickly. “But I mean temperature hot, not sexy hot, in this one instance. And you seem to be shaking an awful lot.”

“I’m shivering because I’m freezing,” Fjord says. “I feel hot to you?” He very carefully unwinds one of his arms from around Jester’s waist and feels his own forehead. He expects it to be clammy and cold and is surprised to find that it is indeed warm under his hand. Very warm. Possibly hot. “Huh,” he says with mild bemusement. “I guess I am.”

“I didn’t prepare any spells to cure diseases with,” Jester says, and her tone is laced with disappointment. “I’m sorry, Fjord.”

“It’s okay Jester—“ Fjord starts to say, then yelps and throws his arm back around Jester’s waist as the moorbounder veers right, towards Caduceus’s mount, which the firbolg hadn’t given a proper name to. Something about how all cats had three names, and how he couldn’t ask which one to use and he didn’t want to offend the creature by making up a bad name. Fjord hadn’t understood a word of it, but Caleb’s whole face had lit up, and a lively discussion about something called face names, tail names and heart names had ensued. He hadn’t understood a lick of that either.

“Caduceus!” Jester yells as they veer towards him. “Fjord isn’t feeling well! Do you—“

Gumdrop snarls at the sudden close proximity of Caduceus’s mount and takes a swipe at them. Caduceus’s mount snarls back and tries to bite Gumdrop as Jester hauls on the reins and steers them back to a safe distance. “Gumdrop, you are being super cranky but you are purple and fuzzy so I forgive you. I will just send a message. Caduceus, sorry about the whole almost crashing into you and our mounts fighting and stuff. Fjord has a fever, do you have anything that could— oh fuck, is that twenty-five words?” She tilts her head as if listening to something. “Caduceus says he has magic and tea in case the magic doesn’t work and he’s asking if it’s urgent and if we should stop.” She tilts her head the other way. “And now Nott is asking what’s wrong because of all the swerving. Nott, Fjord’s super hot.” A pause. “I didn’t mean it that way!”

“Jess, you don’t have to fuss,” Fjord said, feeling his face flush from all the attention and the fever besides. Now that he was paying more attention to his own body, he realized that he was aching all over. He had thought that maybe it was just the soreness that came from riding an animal after a long time of not doing so, but now he realized that maybe it was something else. “We can just wait until we stop for the night to get me all sorted out.” He can’t tell time like Caleb can, but it looks to him like the sun will be setting soon.

“Are you sure?” Jester asks. “Being fussed over is the best part of being sick. Like, if you aren’t too sick to enjoy it. It means eating in bed and extra pillows and being read to.”

Fjord thinks back to the orphanage, where being sick meant being exiled to a tiny room all by yourself so you wouldn’t get all the other kids sick too. Sometimes the caretakers even remembered to check on you. He doesn’t bring that up though. “Being read to sounds kind of nice,” is what he says instead. “Do you have anything in your bag that isn’t…. Um…. Racy?”

Fjord practically hears Jester smile, which was his goal. “I’m sure I can find something.”

She doesn’t, but that’s all right. When they stop for the evening, Caduceus doses him with both magic and tea and Fjord falls asleep with his head in Jester’s lap as she reads him the non-smut bits of Tusk Love. He has to admit, it feels a little nice to be fussed over sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't claim credit for the concept of cats having three names, that's from Tad William's book Tailchaser's Song, and someone helpfully pointed out on Tumblr when I originally posted this that Tad probably got it from T. S. Eliot's The Naming Of Cats. I just figured Caduceus and Caleb would know this bit of deep cat lore.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for anon on Tumblr for the whump fic bingo prompt: beau/yasha - becoming giggling from bloodloss

“Heeeeeeey,” the greeting is a long drawl of a thing, as if Beau was flirting with someone in a bar, not bleeding on the ground. “Heeeeeeey, Yasha. Has anyone told you that you look hot covered in the blood of your enemies?”

“Yes,” Yasha says quickly. “Yes they have.” She spreads her hands over Beau’s abdomen, fingers trailing through blood and purple worm slime. She can hear the worm behind her as it makes a sound that she’s been hearing in her nightmares for years. It’s not her first encounter with a purple worm, not out here in the wastes. “I’m going to fix you up as best I can, so don’t get swallowed again, okay?”

“Okay,” Beau says with a grin as Yasha channels healing energy through her hands. “Okay, okay okay. Being swallowed sucks. I’ll just go punch the shit out of that dude harassing Fjord.”

When Yasha hauls Beau to her feet, Beau giggles and leans heavily on Yasha for a moment. The downside to magical healing is that while it can close a wound, it can’t put the blood back into a person once they’ve lost it. There’s too much blood on the ground and not enough in Beau, but Yasha knows better than to try and tell Beau to sit this one out. Beau will keep fighting until her very last breath, and Yasha knows it.

“Don’t you get swallowed either,” Beau says, her eyes bright and her words slurred, then she’s off, gracefully weaving over the battlefield towards Fjord and the Kryn warrior fighting him. “Hey! Hey asshole! That’s my best friend you’re wailing on! One of my best friends! I have soooo many friends now!”

Yasha smiles the tiniest of smiles as she turns back to the fight, just in time to see Caduceus get swallowed by the giant worm. A second later she hears Caleb shout a spell and feels herself grow larger, and her smile turns into a straight up grinning snarl as she draws her sword and lets her rage settle over her like an icy shroud.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for @frumpkinspocketdimension on Tumblr for the whump fic bingo prompt: Touching clothing and their hands come away bloody: Beau and Yasha

Yasha’s rage is a cold comfort to her as she fights. No complicated emotions, no complicated thoughts. Just the enemy in front of her and the desire to protect herself and the people she cares for. There’s a dull ache in her side, but she doesn’t know why, and it’s a pain that’s easy to dismiss as she fights the Kryn warriors, as she hacks at the purple worm, as she heals Beau, as she swells with the power of Caleb’s magic. Her own pain isn’t important.

Yasha feels the ice of her rage melt away as she leans on her sword, the purple worm a bloody mess of a thing, the smell of fire and smoke still hanging in the air as the Kryn warriors smolder gently.

Beau’s grinning as she makes her way over to Yasha. “That was kind of awesome,” she says as she leans on her staff. “Sorry about bleeding on you though.”

Yasha looks down at her side, where indeed there is indeed a bloody stain, She touches it, curious, and there’s a flair of pain, and the blood is warm. She looks down at her hand, then up at Beau.

“I don’t think it’s yours,” Yasha says, feeling her lips curve into a smile. It’s not funny, it’s not, but she feels the laugh bubble up in her chest anyway.

“Oh shit,” Beau says, and she’s grinning too. “That’s not good.”

“What’s not good?” Yasha hears Caduceus ask. She turns around and he’s standing there, looking rough, his pink hair sticking up all over because of worm slime, and it shouldn’t be funny, just like the sight of her own blood shouldn’t be funny. But then Beau starts laughing, which makes Yasha laugh, and next thing she knows she’s sitting on the ground, Beau leaning against her, and they’re both giggling like Nott just told them a bad joke.

“Oh, that’s how it is,” Caduceus says. “Bad case of the post battle giggles.” He raises his voice slightly. “All right kids, everyone who needs healing huddle up.”

They manage to stop laughing by the time the prayer is done, and the blood on Yasha’s hand becomes just another nuisance to scrub away, the wound in her side another scar.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anon on Tumblr for the whump fic bingo prompt: Jester + “a helpless look before they collapse”

Helplessness looks wrong on Jester, as wrong as the sword sticking out the front of her chest, as wrong as the blood on her lips. Her face is built for smiling, for laughing, for wry winks, for gentle concern, for righteous fury, occasional sorrow, all of those and more. Helpless was not a thing that Jester has ever been, not in all the time Caleb has known her. Yet in that instant where the sword plunges into her, their eyes meet across the battlefield, and that is what he sees before she crumples to the ground. It’s wrong. It’s wrong to make Jester look like that.

Caleb is shouting for Fjord even as he runs toward the Kryn warrior that felled Jester, Nott’s crossbow bolts whizzing by him as she provides cover fire. Fjord is already halfway there, falchion drawn, seawater dripping from the blade, yellow eye ever watchful. His tusks are growing in, Caleb notices them now, now that Fjord’s lips are drawn back in a snarl.

The warrior stands over Jester, sword raised, and for just a moment Caleb’s standing on the side of the road as Lorenzo buries his glaive in Molly’s chest and that will not happen again, it will not, IT WILL NOT.

Fire leaps from his hands at the same time Fjord’s eldritch energy hits the enemy, seconds before his blade follows. Beau is a blur of blue and red as she runs past Caleb and leaps, teeth bared, bleeding and savage, to deliver a kick. A swarm of beetles fly by, swerving around crossbow bolts as Nott fires again and again. Yasha roars, sword swinging, skeletal wings spread.

The Kryn warrior never had a chance.

“Oh hey everyone,” Jester says after she comes back to consciousness with a gasp, Caduceus’s hand still on her chest, her blood smeared against his palm. “Did we win?”

Everyone laughs, more out of relief than humor, but it still makes Jester smile, an expression that suits her infinitely better than the lost one she had worn moments ago.

Trent had taught Caleb about tactics, about how the brains of a group was its center, but he had been wrong.

“Ja,” Caleb says, and offers Jester a hand to help her up. “Ja, we did, Blueberry.”

“Oh good,” Jester says as she gets to her feet, everyone still gathered around her. She’s the center of the group. She’s their heart.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anon on Tumblr for the whump fic bingo prompt: molly + trying to be subtle while leaning against objects to stay upright

Caleb sits down heavily on the floor, leaning back against the basement wall, the wound in his side burning. Oh, he is so tired of being poisoned, but it seems to be a weapon that this breed of demonic fiends come with in spades. The dead beasts in front of them look like some mad wizard’s experiment, a dire wolf crossed with a scorpion perhaps. They’ve fought them before, and the name is on the tip of Caleb’s tongue, but he’s tired. No. Exhausted. There are rifts to the Abyssal Plane popping up everywhere these days, even here in the Empire. It feels like the world is falling apart, bad times and bad dreams abound. This is the third residence they’ve cleared in this small town today, and it’s going to have to be their last. Caleb is completely tapped, and he’s pretty sure Caduceus and Jester are close to their limit.

“I’m fine,” Caleb hears Molly say, and something in his tone makes Caleb look up. Molly is leaning against the wall with a casual grace, as if he hadn’t just been panting and snarling in Infernal at a fiend minutes before. He gives Caduceus what Caleb recognizes as the smile he uses when he is completely full of bullshit “Really, I am. You should heal our mutually squishy friend.”

Caduceus gives Molly a long look and a slow nod before moving to Caleb. Caleb wants to protest and tell Caduceus to go back to Molly, but he knows it would be a very poor lie. Instead, he accepts his healing with good grace and keeps an eye on Molly a little more closely than usual as they all head to the town hall to collect the reward money, and then back to the inn. To the untrained eye, the tiefling seems fine, talking animatedly with Jester, leaning on them occasionally with a friendly arm thrown around the shoulder. Coming back from the grave hadn’t changed the tiefling terribly much, he was still as cuddly as a cat. And just like a cat, it was Molly’s tail that gave him away.

Caleb notices it when they’re in the town hall, Beau and Jester negotiating for some more gold for their troubles. Molly’s leaning against the wall, arms loosely crossed, smiling faintly, for all the world at ease. But there’s something exaggerated about his posture, as if it’s a performance and everyone else is the audience. His tail is stiff instead of relaxed, twitching, and when everyone goes to leave, Caleb sees Molly wince the slightest bit when he parts company with the wall.

Caleb is no stranger to hiding his own injuries, downplaying his own wounds. Still, he’s surprised to find that seeing someone else do it is… distressing. When Molly excuses himself to his room after dinner, Caleb waits for a few agonizing minutes before fetching a basin and washcloth and heading upstairs as well, knocking on Molly’s door once before just letting himself in.

Molly’s expression carries faint surprise and amusement when he sees who it is. “You’ve become bolder in my absence, Mister Caleb,” he says with a smile, then winces as he shrugs off his coat. The color of the coat had hidden the bloodstains well, but Molly’s white shirt does not. It is torn raggedly at the ribs and gone red-brown with drying blood.

“And you have not changed a bit. Still suffering for others,” Caleb says, but there is no real heat behind his words.

Molly chuckles. “I’d hardly call this suffering,” he says, but his posture betrays his pain and exhaustion, and when he goes to lay his coat across a nearby chair, he leans against it for a long moment.

“Still.” Caleb puts the basin on the nightstand. “Let me take care of you.”

Molly raises an eyebrow but does not protest, instead just removing his shirt so that Caleb can see the wound more clearly. There’s a set of claw marks, the gashes still oozing blood slowly, surrounded by dark bruises.

“I do not think it is bad enough for stitches,” Caleb says. “You should be fine if you go to Jester or Caduceus in the morning.” He gently wipes away the blood with the wet cloth and Molly winces. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Molly says quickly. “I don’t mind. A little pain’s not so bad. Helps you feel—“ Molly’s tail, which had been twitching, goes suddenly still. “Helps you feel alive,” he finishes quietly.

Oh. Caleb doesn’t look at Molly as he reaches into one of the many pockets of his coat, pulling out some gauze, then the last of his bandages. “There are better ways to accomplish that,” Caleb says softly as he wraps Molly’s wound, his movements quick but gentle.

“Are there?” Before Molly had died, that might have been said in a teasing, flirtatious tone. Now though, Molly just sounds…. lost.

Caleb lifts his head and looks into Molly’s eyes. When Caleb reaches out to cup the side of Molly’s face, Molly doesn’t shy away, just sighs and leans into the touch.

“Yes,” Caleb breathes, then leans forward and presses his lips to Molly’s.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anon for the whump fic bingo prompt: Beauregard, "making excuses to linger because they don't want to be left alone"

Beau stifles a yawn as she deals Jester another hand of cards, determined not to let on how tired she actually is. The bed she’s sitting on is soft, and it’d be so easy to just fall over and close her eyes. But it’s not her bed, not her room. This is Jester’s room, all pink and green and blue, with a four poster bed with actual filmy bed curtains like something out of the novels Jester and Caleb sometimes read. The bed canopy twinkles with tiny lights, like fireflies blinking. It’s beautiful.

Beau’s room is across the hall, less beautiful and more practical, which suits Beau just fine. The furnishings are simple, tasteful, and don’t look anything like what she grew up with, which is her only requirement for liking a bedroom really. The mattress is firm but not hard, there’s a door that leads to her very own training room, and another door that leads to a bathing chamber that reminds her of the more fancy public bathhouses that the group has frequented on their travels. It’s nice. It’s more than nice, if she’s being honest.

When Caleb had told everyone that he had finally perfected a new spell, well, no one had been expecting an honest to gods _mansion._ Better yet, a mansion that no one could enter but them, that no one else could see. No more alarm spells. No more night watches. No more curling up under a magic dome. No more sleeping together. No more sleeping next to Jester.Which is fine. Just because the last time Beau had slept alone had been the night Molly had died, that didn’t mean anything. Just because the time before that she had fallen asleep sandwiched between Molly and Caleb and Keg, after Jester and the others had been taken, well, that didn’t make her feel anxious. Just because Jester hadn’t been there that morning when Beau had woken up, and neither had Yasha, and neither had Fjord, well, that was in the past. Just like all those nights when she had been a teenager, slipping into girl’s bedrooms and back out again to her own bed in the morning. Her own bed. In her own room. Alone.

“Beau?” Jester’s voice breaks into Beau’s thoughts. “Are you all right?”

Beau forces herself to smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“Because you’ve been staring at your cards for five minutes, and also your hands are shaking.”

Beau looks down at her traitorous hands and wills them to be still. “I was just thinking. Really hard.”

Jester has a look on her face like she isn’t buying it. Shit.

“I think maybe we should call it a night,” Jester says as she puts down her cards.

Fuck. “But it’s still early!” Beau protests, even though she has no idea what time it is. “We could—“ Beau wracks her brain for something else they could do. They had already explored the mansion in their sleep clothes, taken turns performing dramatic readings of Tusk Love, played Never Have I Ever, and played several hands of dragon poker. “We could… sneak down into the kitchen and look for snacks!” Beau wasn’t hungry, but Jester might go for it.

“Okay, that sounds great and all, but you look too tired to even walk to your own bedroom,” Jester says. “Maybe you should just crash here tonight. You know. If you want to.”

There’s something about the way Jester says it that makes Beau put down her own cards and look at Jester more closely. Her tail is swishing on the bed with a movement that could only be described as anxious, and there’s a far away look in her eyes. Beau wonders if Jester is thinking about waking up in the back of a cart, waking up in a cage, not alone, but not together with everyone, not where she _belonged._

“Wellllll,” Beau draws out. “I guess I am a little tired.”

“Me too,” Jester says as she gathers up the cards and stacks the deck neatly on the bedside table. “And this bed is soooo big. Like, way too big for one person.”

“It’d be a shame to waste all that space,” Beau says as she slides under the covers.

“It’s bad to waste things,” Jester agrees as the bedroom lights obligingly dim, as she slips under the covers with Beau. “Is it my turn to be the big spoon?”

“Probably,” Beau says with a yawn as she snuggles up against Jester. “Night, Jessie.”

“Night, Beau.”

Beau sighs in contentment and relief as Jester’s tail wraps around her ankle. Maybe next time Caleb summons the mansion she’ll invite Jester to her room. After all, her bed is really big too. Be a shame to waste it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


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